Minnesota. The land of ice –– I mean nice

Submitted by editor on Thu, 04/18/2013 - 12:08pm

I have recently come to the conclusion that the universe is all about balance. Call it Karma or whatever, but too much of a good thing will eventually see that you end up stuck with a dead car battery in a pile of ice.

This thought came to me several times this past week upon our return to the land of a thousand icy lakes. As a family, we decided to take our own spring break and spent a week in sunny Arizona catching up with each other while seeing the sights. Even Cody, with permission from his college professors, was able to join us on our family excursion into what seemed like paradise.

For days on end our only work was to drink enough water; our only worry was at how burned Cody's back was getting; and our only care was to soak up enough Vitamin-D to carry us through the Minnesota spring.

Then, since the universe knows when you're overdoing it, reality hit. From the minute we stepped onto the over-booked flight home, the pilot was on the loud speaker warning us about ice storms in Minnesota with the potential of hail, wind and lightening which would make the flight "less than smooth". I'm not one who loves to fly, so just like when a nurse tells you, "This will hurt a little", and you brace for a pain like you've never experienced, my brain was screaming, "We're going down in a fireball, right into an icy lake". For 2-1/2 hours, that was pretty much all I could think about. Turns out, the landing was smoother than take-off because the storm had moved north by the time we got there. We were off the hook.

After finding our luggage and eventually remembering where our car was in the lot we were all tired and anxious to be on our way home. No such luck. The doors wouldn't unlock by remote and the car wouldn't start. The battery was completely dead. There we stood in the cold airport parking lot for several minutes with our bags and our tans, wondering what to do next.

Eventually, Andy flagged down a poor unsuspecting man and asked if he could jumpstart our car. I'm pretty sure that had we been in any other airport in the nation, maybe even the planet, the guy would have walked the other way. After all, he was cold, tired and just wanted to get home too. But in Minnesota, a dead battery seems to create bonds between individuals, as we've all been there at some point and have this sense of "us against the weather" attitude.

Long story short is that Minnesota "nice" won out and not only did the man jumpstart our car; he had to completely remove the battery from his car first in order to get the cables to reach. Not an easy task with the tools we had. What a relief.

So, a big THANK YOU to Mr. Mark Hollingsworth from Hopkins for going above and beyond. You set the universe right again.